In electronic power systems, heat produced by power semiconductors must be rejected to ambient air by a suitable heat dissipating subsystem. In applications where a semiconductor device dissipates only a few Watts, finned structures cooled by free air convection provide suitable cooling means. However, at higher levels of dissipation, such as 100 Watts and above, such methods of heat transfer become ineffective. On the other hand, for devices which dissipate on the order of 1,000 Watts, fluid cooled systems must usually be resorted to in order to provide adequate cooling at such high power dissipations. At such high power levels, fluid cooling is a requirement despite added complexity, high initial cost, reduced reliability and added maintenance costs. At power dissipation levels between approximately 100 Watts and 1,000 Watts, forced air cooled finned structures are generally used. Ideally, such structures include large numbers of closely spaced fins of small thickness and short length. Thus far however, fabrication costs have precluded general use of such ideal fins and conventional extruded structures have prevailed where fin thickness, spacing and orientation are all constrained to non-optimal values. The net result is that the present forced air heat sinks are often ten-fold more massive than their ideal counterparts. The size and mass penalties in turn yield multiplied penalties at the system level. There is therefore a long felt need for providing a low-cost heat sink structure for use in a forced air environment and preferably one which eliminates the need for any form of air manifold or baffle and which is capable of more closely approaching optimal physical parameters for use in the power dissipation range of approximately 100 Watts to 1,000 Watts.